Lit Theory Final

Patriarchy: A system where men hold primary power and dominate roles of authority and privilege.
First Wave Feminism: Focused on legal equality, particularly voting rights, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Second Wave Feminism: Advocated for workplace equality, reproductive rights, and liberation, beginning in the 1960s.
Third Wave Feminism*: A 1990s movement emphasizing diversity, intersectionality, and challenges to universal definitions of womanhood.
Images of Women Criticism: Examines how women are portrayed in literature and culture, critiquing stereotypes and biases.
Gender and Sex: Distinguishes between socially constructed roles (gender) and biological differences (sex).
The Canon: A body of works considered authoritative or representative of a culture, often critiqued for excluding marginalized voices.
Prescriptive Criticism: Evaluates literature based on adherence to predetermined norms or ideals.
Intersectionality*: Coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw, describes how overlapping social identities (e.g., race, gender) contribute to systemic oppression.

Naturalizing of Heterosexuality: The assumption that heterosexuality is the natural or default orientation.
Homosociality: Non-sexual relationships and bonds between individuals of the same gender.
Queer: Challenges normative sexual and gender identities, encompassing diverse expressions.
Homosexual Identity: The identification and categorization of individuals based on same-sex attraction, shaped historically and socially.
Traffic in Women: A concept from Gayle Rubin, discussing the exchange of women in patriarchal systems for social and economic purposes.
Lesbian Continuum: Adrienne Rich's concept highlighting a range of woman-to-woman relationships beyond sexual intimacy.
Homophobia/Homosexual Panic: Fear or anxiety related to homosexuality, often manifesting as discrimination or aggression.
Outing: The act of publicly revealing someone's sexual orientation without their consent.
Heteronormativity: The assumption that heterosexual relationships are the standard or norm.
Gender and Performance*: Judith Butler's idea that gender is performed through repeated actions based on societal expectations.

Discourse*: In Foucault’s theory, systems of knowledge and power that define and regulate practices and beliefs.
The Panopticon*: A metaphor for modern surveillance and control, based on Jeremy Bentham's prison design, explored by Michel Foucault.
Old Historicism vs. New Historicism: Old Historicism prioritizes historical context; New Historicism explores texts in the cultural and historical interplay of power and ideology.
Cultural Studies: Examines cultural artifacts and practices within social and political contexts, emphasizing resistance and agency.

The Unconscious*: The part of the mind containing repressed desires and thoughts outside conscious awareness.
Transference: Redirecting feelings for one person onto another, often seen in therapy.
Repression*: The act of pushing distressing memories or desires into the unconscious.
Defenses: Psychological strategies (e.g., denial, displacement) to manage anxiety or stress.
Sublimation: Redirecting socially unacceptable impulses into acceptable activities.
Denial: Refusing to accept reality or facts to avoid discomfort.
Oedipal Complex: Freud’s theory of a child’s desire for the opposite-sex parent and rivalry with the same-sex parent.
The Ego, Id, Superego: The psyche’s rational mediator (ego), instinctual desires (id), and moral conscience (superego).
The Return of the Repressed: When repressed desires or memories resurface in disguised forms.
Displacement: Shifting emotional impulses from the original source to a safer target.

The Mirror Stage*: A phase where infants recognize themselves in a mirror, forming self-awareness.
The Imaginary: A pre-linguistic phase of unity and wholeness in Lacanian theory.
Law of the Father: The symbolic order’s rules and authority, introducing the child to societal norms.
The Symbolic: Lacan’s realm of language, culture, and structured social relations.

Post-Colonialism: Analyzes the effects of colonization on cultures and societies, highlighting resistance and hybrid identities.
Double-Consciousness*: W.E.B. Du Bois's concept of internal conflict in oppressed individuals who see themselves through others’ perspectives.
Mimicry: When colonized people imitate colonizers’ culture, blending submission and resistance.
Neocolonialism: Modern economic and cultural dominance resembling colonial power dynamics.
Hybridity: The creation of mixed identities and cultures through colonization and globalization.
Orientalism*: Edward Said’s critique of Western depictions of the East as exotic and inferior.
Whiteness Studies: Examines how whiteness operates as a social and cultural norm and a position of privilege.

The Ideal Reader: A hypothetical reader who fully understands and appreciates a text.
The Implied Reader: A concept by Wolfgang Iser, referring to the reader assumed by the text itself.
Gaps: Elements of a narrative left undefined, inviting reader interpretation.
Interpretive Communities*: Groups of readers who share common strategies and conventions for interpreting texts.
Horizon of Expectations*: Hans Robert Jauss's idea that readers’ interpretations are shaped by their historical and cultural context.
Reception History: The study of how texts are understood differently across time and cultures.
Symptomatic Reading: Interpreting a text by uncovering its underlying contradictions or ideologies.

Anthropomorphism*: Attributing human traits to nonhuman entities in literature or culture.
Environmental Justice*: Advocates for equal treatment of all people in environmental decisions and policies.
The Nonhuman: Exploring the roles of animals, ecosystems, and objects beyond human-centered perspectives.
The Social and Medical Model of Disability*: Contrasting the medical model, which treats disability as an individual issue, with the social model, focusing on societal barriers.
Binary Oppositions of Disability: Constructs like "abled/disabled" that simplify and stigmatize diverse experiences of ability.